DEVELOPMENT OF THE SPRINT HURDLES

By Tony Veney, California State University, Los Angeles

One
of the difficult areas to manage as a coach is the development of your sprint
hurdlers (110H/ 100H). The books out there will give you plenty of technical
things to learn and what I want to touch on is the practice session
itself. One of the biggest problems continues
to be the fact that we take our best sprinters and sprint them and then take our
second-tier sprinters and hurdle them. We must test all sprinters for hurdling
potential and take advantage of all the explosive work hurdling gives the
sprinter. Some of this country's best sprinters were also hurdlers and despite
the problems that come from mixing the two, you must be a top-flight sprinter (I
did not say world-class) to be a great hurdler
. Now, if the sprinter shows no aptitude or
heart to be a hurdler, then you are wasting your time trying to get him over the
sticks. Have a 14-day plan and stick to it,
attempting to get in as much workas possible over the barriers. And by the
way, let's refer to them as "sticks" rather than "barriers," which has a
negative connotation. Two weeks are better than one week for this plan because
you can break it down into the following:

a.
Eliminate 2 Sundays b. Eliminate 2 days of rest after
the hard days c. Eliminate 4 days for competition (2
meets per week) d. Eliminate 4 days for medium
workouts/technique days e. Leaving you 2 days to run
hard over the sticks.

Remember that the meets constitute hard days and that will leave you time to run
hard only one day that week (with a dual meet and Saturday invitational). The
hard running that stick sprinters get during the two meets per week will give
them all the speed endurance work they need, so you can get your stick-specific
work on Mondays. An example of a possible cycle could be:

MondayWarm
upDrills-with goal for the week's work to be acceleration 3x30m @ 95%
w/3mins. restShort jumps (standing long/triple/S-S bounds) 3x3 each 4-6
starts over 2H set apart at 7.8 women/8.5 men and 27-30" women/33-36" men 4-6
starts over 4H set at 7.8/8.5 apart and 27-30"/33-36"
high.

This
is all that you do. It may not look like much work to some, but if it's done
right, you have worked very well. And with two meets this week, you have had a
hard week.

WednesdayMeet
day. The stick sprinter may sprint both stick races. Because they possess
good coordinative ability, they also make good long jumpers.

ThursdaySame
as Tuesday.

FridayRest
day or walk-through day-swim or handoffs/starts.

SaturdayMeetSprint
sticksShuttle sticksRelays (maybe both).

SundayRest.

MondayContrast
acceleration/same as last week's start practice except using a weighted
vest/uphill/pulling a tire.

Tuesday
through SundaySame as previous week.

Keeping
the sticks low and close will keep the sticks coming at the stick sprinter in a
competition fashion. A "Competition Factor" must be planned for at practice so
you can keep the level of focus as high as possible. You cannot expect them to
run regular spacing over the regular stick height. You only ask for one hard
race at a meet, so how can you expect to get reps at practice over the same
thing? So, by keeping the sticks low and
close you keep the movements as fast as you need them to be for a competition,
and the spacing and height of the sticks is close enough to require regular
stick movements. This is just a thumbnail sketch for the sticks. You can tow
over sticks, uphill sticks, downhill sticks, tire sticks, sticks into/ against
the wind, or do them wearing a
vest. After the second week is
done, you can decide that flat running (with- out sticks) is needed to work on
top end speed. So use the medium days to work on technical aspects of the
sticks. Also, when you finish your non-sticks
workout, finish up with some stick running so you can still build on your stick
rhythm. When you run with stepover mechanics, it takes you away from the shuffle
rhythm that is so characteristic of the sprint hurdler. This why stick running
after a full sprint workout helps to reinforce the stick
rhythm. Running your stick sprinters on the 1st
and 3rd legs of the relay are positions that require quicker rhythm and are more
conducive to assisting the stick movements.